


sacred new beginnings

by darkskyparadise



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, Love at First Sight, POV Lucas Friar, because i love cliches, lucas is a simp tbh, lucas' mother loves maya as she should, lucas/riley just doesn't exist, set in S1, the muffin episode idk the name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkskyparadise/pseuds/darkskyparadise
Summary: they meet for about thirty seconds on the subway, and lucas spends the next hour with her on his mind until he walks into class and she's sat right in front of him. maybe he'll like this school a lot more than he was planning to.
Relationships: Lucas Friar/Maya Hart
Comments: 2
Kudos: 103





	sacred new beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this years back and found it when i was going through an old laptop, and it reminded me how much i miss lucaya and how much they deserved better so here we are in the year of 2020 still mourning them. i think it was originally gonna be multiple chapters of them throughout the show but i can't remember the direction i had for it so nvm and titles are hard to think of so thank you taylor swift for that lyric in cornelia street.  
> lucas/riley straight up isn't even implied so take that as you will, and i also have not even tried to write fanfic in about three years so uh. have fun reading

It's early in the morning when he first meets her on that subway ride, and he's too full of nerves about the new school and the plead of _"please make this work, Lucas"_ from his mom is busy repeating in his head far too loud, so he doesn't really take notice of anyone on the ride until she appears. She's all blonde hair and sickly sweet smiles as she saunters up to him and he's too mesmerised to process anything, _do_ anything except smile at her, and then she's 'broken up' with him and gone back to the brunette she left further up the train before he's even figured out how to make both his brain and mouth work again. She seems to spin around the place like she owns it, like she knows it better than anyone else, and he doesn't have any reason to doubt it.

He's still thinking about her a minute later when her friend falls onto his lap and he looks at her watching them and smiling before turning his attention to the girl on his lap who's introducing herself, responding politely like his mom always taught him to. She's pretty and sweet and red-faced but the confident blonde is the one who sticks in his mind even after the brunette - Riley, she said - has left and she's still there later on in the morning when he's being officially enrolled into John Quincy Adams Middle School and told he'll be in the year below than he should be because of what happened in Texas. It's not like he can argue it, so he instead just thanks the principal and secretary and goes to find his class with Mr. Matthews. When he walks in and there's a hiss of "subway boy" in the front row, he sees her again and the empty seat behind her and maybe, he thinks, this new start isn't as bad as he thought it would be.

* * *

Her name is Maya Hart. She doesn't like school - although Lucas is certain she'd be better if she just _tried_ \- but she loves teasing people, specifically him. She would do pretty much anything for Riley Matthews; she'd never admit it, but she adores everything about that slightly weird genius kid Farkle Minkus. She has a troubled family life.

He finds these out throughout the first few weeks at his new school, when Maya, Riley and Farkle happily welcome him with open arms into their years-long friend trio and treat him as if he's been there the entire time. Lucas likes them all, of course. Riley's just as sweet as he assumed she was from their first meeting and Farkle's quirks are more endearing than annoying, but he can't help paying extra attention to all the little details he finds out about Maya. She's more difficult to get to know than the other two, with far too many guards up for him to break easily, and he tries to use that as an excuse to himself to explain why he feels so desperate to know her like Riley and Farkle do, rather than acknowledging how often she occupies his thoughts whether he's awake or asleep. That excuse doesn't seem to justify why he likes when her eyes light up every time she makes fun of him, and why he likes when her smile stretches when she's trying to stop herself bursting out in laughter every time she comes up with yet another new nickname more ridiculous than the last one, and soon he has to admit (to himself, in the privacy of his own head) that's the reason he even lets her. He thinks he'd probably let her call him anything if it meant seeing her happy, and the day he sees her sad only solidifies that.

That's the day he finds out that last fact about her. Their teacher - Mr. Matthews, Riley's dad (Lucas is fairly certain a parent isn't supposed to teach their own child but here they are) - sets a project where they have to sell muffins. How that will help their grades is a mystery, but Mr. Matthews claims it'll be teaching them business skills and Lucas doesn't feel the need to complain or question it when he's paired with Maya. Unsurprisingly, her eyes roll and a comment is made about 'working with the cowboy' but he can sense the lack of bite there and knows she's not as annoyed as she's making out to be. His mom immediately goes out to buy all the ingredients they need when he texts her a list, and she sends along an invitation for Maya to join them for dinner. It's accepted as soon as it's offered and maybe he's overthinking it but something about her shrug and lowered gaze when he reminds her she should probably tell her mom where she'll be doesn't sit right with him.

It's when they're walking home with nothing to say that he realizes this is possibly the first but definitely by far the longest time they've ever been alone since they met. She's walking with him but trailing the smallest step behind and stays quiet even though he knows she could out-talk the whole of New York combined most of the time. This isn't a Maya he likes, so he starts finding something, anything, to talk about and quickly realizes he's made a wrong step by choosing her parents as the first topic of conversation when her face falls even more. After he's mentally kicked himself, the conversation is instantly changed to school, to their friends, to what animals she likes, her favorite color, her hobbies, and he knows it's obvious he's trying too hard but he needs to pick safe topics that won't make her eyes harden again. It works, and Maya doesn't mention his overcompensating if she's aware of it, and by the time they're home she's laughing freely in the way he likes and he's filled with relief that he's made up for the mishap.

Two hours later, the muffins are sitting on kitchen counter freshly decorated thanks to Maya's incredible art skills that Lucas' mom can't stop complimenting her on, and they're sitting at the dinner table eating the pizza that's been brought for them (this is how he also finds out Maya hates pepperoni - she spends a couple of minutes before eating slyly picking them off when Lucas' mom isn't looking and gives him a grateful smile when he takes them off her plate to hide what she'd been doing) and the two of them are still covered in flour and icing and whatever other ingredients they threw over each other, still pink-faced and grinning. Based on appearances, Lucas definitely lost that fight but he reckons he put up a good one considering the scowl she'd given him during it and the multiple _"how am I meant to get all this out of my hair, Huckleberry?"_ complaint he had received. Then Maya almost chokes on her pizza when Lucas bends his head and a tablespoon-sized lump of butter he hadn't even known was there falls on his plate, and Lucas is about to jokingly whine to his mom to take his side when he notices how she's watching the five-foot girl who managed to pour an _entire_ bag of flour over her six-foot son, and he knows that look all too well. Mrs. Friar loves her.

He tells Maya this a while after they finish eating and are sitting in his bedroom with the door open like Lucas was told - quietly enough that Maya couldn't hear, thank God - to keep it. She blinks, and looks surprised and skeptical as if it's an impossibility, so he repeats it. The second time makes her shake her head with a small, sad smile as if she doesn't believe him, but she softly tells him she thinks his mom's the best, and Lucas wants to mentally kick himself again when he takes it as a chance to ask about her own mom and can't seem to stop himself even after he watches her physically stiffen and her jaw clench. It doesn't take much pushing for her to break and all of a sudden, right as he's about to give up and apologize, everything comes tumbling out of her mouth as if she'd been holding it inside for too long.

She tells him how her dad left when she was five, something he guesses she secretly blames herself for despite putting the blame on her mom during the rant, and how her mom is so busy working or going to auditions or doing anything that doesn't involve being home that she doesn't have time for Maya. The never-ending sarcasm and overconfidence makes even more sense in his mind now, and it's when her eyes begin to get shiny and she's blinking harshly that he crosses the room to sit next to her and place his hand on her shoulder. He wants to hug her but he doesn't because he doesn't know her boundaries, and he's afraid he's pushed them already, so it's left at that until she dries her eyes and apologizes, looking embarrassed and self-conscious as she tries to fix the slightly smudged mascara. She still looks sheepish even after he's reassured her it's nothing to apologize for, so he moves back to 'safe' topics again, although he can tell she's finally let down some of her guard for him and that thought makes him happy.

What makes him happier is the huge, real smile she doesn't bother to even try to conceal when Mrs. Friar drops her off back at her apartment and promises that she's welcome at the Friar house any time she likes before she goes inside. His mom is brightly smiling right back, continuing to wave until Maya's no longer in sight, and spends the short ride home gushing over her. She's happy he's found friends, and she's especially happy one of them is Maya, and Lucas is so, so glad she likes Maya as much as he does.

The next day they're back to their usual routine of teasing and sarcasm and all the nicknames she's managed to come up with in the past twenty-four hours but something feels different to him somehow. It feels more humorous, with next to no real spite underlying her words, and when she goes up in his face and 'hahurrs', clearly trying to look annoyed, he can't help but laugh right back to her. He's pretty sure he can see a hint of a smirk hidden alongside the eye roll and huff he gets afterwards, and all of him hopes something feels different to her too.


End file.
